The official representative of the Investigative Committee of Russia Vladimir Markin in an interview explained why the illegal activities of the ICR senior officers, who now are under investigation for a bribe in the case of kingpin Shakro Molodoy, last year left unnoticed by the internal ICR Commission, which found no violations in the central administration office.

In response to the question of the publication PASMI of which body is able to identify high-level corruption, Vladimir Markin said that the crimes and administrative violations are not in the competence of the internal commission.

According to him, the commission has to comply with the requirements for official conduct of the federal officials and the settlement of a conflict of interest does not consider the reports of crimes and administrative violations. According to him, the commission's work in the ICR system cannot be a substitute for law enforcement agencies.

"The commission does not have the necessary powers, such as the implementation of operational and investigative activities to identify crimes. And it is quite logical, because such functionality is given by law to the relevant law enforcement agencies", said Markin.

The activities of the commission are mainly aimed at preventing misconduct, noted Markin.

According to the official representative of the ICR, "the main task of the commission is to assist in ensuring that the ICR officers follow the restrictions and prohibitions, requirements on the prevention and settlement of conflict of interest, as well as ensuring they exercise functions established by law."

The commission’s decisions are, as a rule, advisory rather than mandatory, said Markin, noting that since 2011, from the Russian ICR departments 162 employees who had been deemed unfit for their positions were dismissed from their offices.

It is to be recalled that in July 2016, on charges of taking bribes within the case of the kingpin Shakro Molodoy, three high-ranking ICR employees were arrested: the first Deputy Head of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee in Moscow General Denis Nikandrov, the Head of the Department of Interdepartmental Interaction and Internal Security Mikhail Maksimenko and his Deputy Alexander Lamontov.